Annecy-Showcased ‘Heart of Darkness’ Moves To Rio

Brazil's Karmatique to produce a social-issue toon pic version of celebrated title

Brazil’s Karmatique Imagens is set to produce a toon mini-series and feature that is freely inspired by Joseph Conrad’s legendary novel “Heart of Darkness.”

Project made its market bow this week at Annecy’s Intl. Animation Film Market (MIFA) as part of its Feature Film 2014 MIFA Pitches Progam, a section that is fast emergizing as the key new talent focus at the cartoon confab.

Running around 75 minutes, the movie is accompanied by a a mini-series made up of four half-hours. Total project is budgeted at $3 million.

Targeting teens/young adults, “Darkness” has been created Rogerio Nunes. He helms and co-writes with Sergio Nesteriuk.

Lieutenant Marlowe’s story takes place this time round in a near-future Rio de Janeiro near future. Corruption-sodden, racked by riots, it is pretty much cut off from the rest of the world

A renowned –and honest – Rio cop, Marlowe is assigned to a mission of locating Captain Kurtz, a legendary cop who went missing after showing symptoms of a psychosis and shooting fellow Rio police.

“It’s the first attempt to focus on the “B side” of Rio de Janeiro through an animation feature, exposing the social contrasts that remain in Brazilian society,” Nunes pointed out.

Founded in 2005, Sao Paulo-based Karmatique specializes in preserving memories of the past. Its production slate includes short films and documentaries mixing animation, such as “Jacana and Adoniran” and “Fish.”

“Although ‘Darkness’ makes use of fantasy, it also presents social issues such as police corruption, drug trafficking, environmental degradation, the absence of state control of Rio favelas, popular blind faith in a future savior,” Nunes added.

He aims for a realistic art style, merging live-action with rotoscoping. “Heart of Darkness” forms part of a larger multi-platform project , which includes a vidgame.

With a fair dash of romanticism, Conrad’s anti-heroes have inspired multiple big screen, TV and even opera adaptations, including Some of most remarkable versions including Victor Fleming’s “Lord Jim” (1925), Alastair Reid TV series “Nostromo” and of course Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” (1979).